MovieWatch: Transformers 2

WARNING: This being a review there will be spoilers. Do not proceed further if you do not wish to view them. But then again, reading this could spare you the agony of watching this drivel.

Nearly two years ago, I raved about the first Transformers movie. Many fans would disagree, but at the very least it was a good action movie that delivered and did not have too many minutes wasted on unimportant and irrelevant details. The biggest disappointment then was how Megatron easily had the edge over Optimus Prime in their fight at the end of the movie, and it was a quibble.

Fast forward to last weekend, when I finally got to watch the sequel with the old gang, and witnessed an absolute wreck of a movie. Sure, they made sure Optimus Prime kicked ass, but even Optimus Prime cannot rescue the mess Michael Bay made. I can name a litany of faults and plot holes the size of Mars, but instead I will stick with the following.

- There was a Decepticon who was disguised as a "hot chick" to seduce Sam, who transformed into a Species-inspired robot in an attempt to kill him. When did the Decepticons start making skin grafts, and why the hell would they even bother? And for those of you who watched Species, can you remember what was so great about it, besides Natasha Henstridge and Marg Helgenberger? That's right. Absolutely nothing. It was a ripoff of Alien, and a piss-poor one at that. And yet Bay decided it would be a good idea to ripoff a piss-poor ripoff of another movie.

- Arcee barely had any screentime, and the Twins had too much. If you want to introduce more Autobots, don't do it because you can sell more toys, do it because you're actually gonna use those characters. And stop the nonsense about African-American accented robots. These are ALIEN SPACE ROBOTS. They shouldn't take after human speech patterns. Ugh.

- A leg-humping Decepticon. Really. I know it's Megan Fox's leg we're talking about, but come on. Oh, and a senile Decepticon-turned-Autobot.

- Devastator was one of the coolest Transformers EVER. A gargantuan robot made with five different giant robots named the Constructicons? Hell yeah. Except in the movie they gave him balls. Was that necessary? I'll answer my own rhetorical question: No, it wasn't.

- The Matrix of Leadership isn't what we know as the Matrix of Leadership. WTF?

- Megatron isn't the big, bad boss. He answers to a guy called the Fallen, which makes absolutely no sense. WTF.

- That last battle scene that lasted something like 40 minutes could be shortened by 30 and made the movie that much less of an over-the-top, slo-mo filled Baysplosion fest. But hey, why make it suck halfway when you can make it suck so hard light fails to escape?

I'm getting angrier the more I think about it, so I shall stop here. The only reasons to watch this movie is if you're hard up for a explosion-filled, mindless, senseless action movie, and watching Optimus Prime open up cans of whup-arse. Leave your brains at home. Otherwise, don't even bother. There is a school of thought that those who have not watched the animated series would enjoy it more than those who have. I wouldn't bet on it though.

Posted via email from trapper's posterous